


Snowballed

by pukajen



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukajen/pseuds/pukajen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that she was completely alone with Castle, Beckett wasn't sure whether to hightail it out of there – the reasonable and smart choice – or stick around just to prove she could – the dangerous and dumb choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowballed

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to soundingsea who betaed this in a ridiculously short amount of time, especially considering that she was visiting a friend in another city this weekend.
> 
> This was written for Challenge 24: Prompt Fic over on lj's castleland.

It could be worse, Beckett reflected as she looked around The Old Haunt; of all the bar names and ideas Castle had come up with, which were essentially ego-inflating ventures, this piece of history – both very personal for him and very much part of the tapestry of the city – felt much more like the man she'd gotten to know over the last four years.

She'd been playing poker with Castle and the boys for a couple of hours when Jenny finally put her foot down – via several texts – and Ryan headed home.

Beckett wasn't sure exactly what Ryan had told his fiancee about the night Lockwood had captured and interrogated Esposito and himself, but whatever it was, Ryan had been sticking pretty close to home the last week and a half.

About half an hour after Ryan abandoned ship, Espo ended up heading out too, claiming the need for an early night. However, given the stack of cash in front of her, Beckett was pretty sure he was just tired of losing his money.

By then the bar was empty of all patrons, leaving only Heather, the bartender who'd replaced Brian. Castle might seem affable and naive at times, but he wasn't going to keep on an employee who admitted to skimming from the till. Though both Beckett and Heather were more than a little dubious about Castle's claims that he would be a bartender extraordinaire if anyone came in looking for a drink to warm them on such a cold and blustery February night, Castle sent Heather home.

Without the presence of other people, the bar now felt very empty and incredibly confining. 

Now that she was completely alone with Castle, Beckett wasn't sure whether to hightail it out of there – the reasonable and smart choice – or stick around just to prove she could – the dangerous and dumb choice.

Either option left her feeling jittery and uneasy, yet the former filled her with a low burn of excitement while the latter smacked of retreat.

This was the first time they'd truly been alone together, away from the station and work, since he'd kissed her. Since she'd kissed him back.

Those handful of seconds, an eternity of moments, when he gripped her, held her so that she couldn't pull her gun, the flash of understanding of what he was going to do, were burned into her memory for all time.

That she'd pulled away – a little shocked, a little angry, and a lot needful – only to dive back in for more, more of his taste, more of the feel of his lips on hers, more wanting his hands on her, and hers on him, came back to haunt her at the most inopportune times.

Mainly, whenever she was conscious.

Or, more to the point, when she wasn't. Some names should never be whispered in bed during the nebulous moments between wakefulness and sleep. Not if the person sharing the bed wasn't the owner of said name.

Not if she wanted to keep that person, Josh, with her. And given how hard she hadn't fought to make him stay this time, the results were self-evident. 

“Here you go,” Castle said as he came back to their booth. He placed a glass of red wine on the table next to her left elbow, then slid in next to her.

Close; closer than he had been when the boys had been around, but not quite close enough to touch.

His own glass was filled generously with what she assumed was the same red wine. She wondered if he'd opened one of the special bottles – some of which were worth more than she made in a month – to share with her. Toying with the stem of her wine glass, Beckett wondered if Castle knew she was in on his little scheme: pour the wine out of her line of sight and then not tell her it wasn't the house vintage she normally drank.

Taking a slow sip she readily identified it as one of the higher end bottles; it might not be rent expensive, but it was definitively in the neighborhood of what she would consider paying for a nice pair of boots.

When he failed to hid a grin behind his own glass, Beckett upped the price of the bottle.

As if she couldn't tell the difference between a forty dollar bottle of wine and a four hundred dollar bottle. Taking another sip, she relished the rich flavors as she lazily rolled the liquid over her tongue.

Still, she let him have his little secret; it hurt nothing and if she objected, he might feel honor-bound to try and switch something else just to see if she could tell.

Plus, it was damned fine wine and while on some level Beckett felt like she should take a stand – the money he'd promised never to spend on her still managed to trickle through – this small infraction gave them both pleasure.

After taking a sip of his own wine, Castle slid his hand under the table to dig something out of his hip pocket; on the way back up he must have misjudged the distance between his body and the tabletop and ended up gently rapping his knuckles against the wood.

For a moment, he tensed next to her; it was almost imperceptible, but they were sitting so close that it was hard for her not to notice. Glancing down, she saw him flexing his right hand where it rested on his thigh.

“Hand still giving you problems?” Beckett asked. The cuts seemed to have mostly healed; the only evidence that he’d knocked a man unconscious with a couple of solid punches were dark scabs on the knuckles of his well-manicured hands. But while Castle proclaimed that he was fine, that the doctor Alexis made him go see told him that the hairline fractures and chipped bone were clean and should heal on their own, Beckett had been worried enough to keep a close eye on him.

For all that Castle could and did whine about a hangnail or create elaborate prose about a bruised shin, he had remained remarkably silent about his injuries beyond the 'excruciating' in the ambulance and a comment in passing on his twitter feed.

Not that she ever checked his twitter feed.

“It's good.”

At least that was different than 'fine', Beckett thought with not a little irritation.

“Castle.” She put as much aggravation and demand into his name as possible. Her gaze held his until he finally broke and looked down at his hand, giving her a small shrug. 

To stop herself from pushing the matter, Beckett picked up her glass and took a couple of long sips.

It really was incredibly good wine. 

“It's healing; just a little bit more time and everything will be as good as new again. I just forgot that time isn't now, and knocked my hand when I went to get this.” So saying, Castle uncurled his fist to reveal a bottle cap opener. It was a little rusty, the opening wider than any she had seen before.

“I hope to hell that's not a personal touch Heather brought with her when she took over,” Beckett said sardonically. “If it is, I think you're going to want to buy her a new one before your next health inspection.”

“Take a closer look,” Castle urged her.

It was a bit difficult in the dim light of the bar, but she took the bottle opener from him, forcibly ignoring the way her fingers wanted to linger over the soft palm of his hand, wanted to let the piece of metal, warmed from his body heat, drop to the table so that she could inspect his knuckles for herself to make sure that there wasn't any permanent damage.

Tilting the bottle opener to try and catch the dim overhead light, Beckett could just make out an arrow pointing to the part used to open bottles. Ever helpful, Castle pulled out his iPhone and moments later had it shining brightly.

In the cool blue light, Beckett could now make out the words clearly: 'BOTTLE STOPPER OPENER', over the arrow, then, 'slide over top of bottle giving slight twist to lock'.

“These are instructions on how to use it,” Beckett exclaimed, laughter filling her voice as she looked up, hoping to see Castle’s face reflecting her own amusement. Only he wasn't looking at the decades-old bartending tool in her hand, but instead staring at her face in a way that made her want to bolt because of how much it made her want to kiss him.

“Um. Yeah.” Castle cleared his throat then shook his head just the slightest bit. “If you turn it over you can see it was made right here in New York.”

And sure enough, when she did, stamped into the very base in much smaller letters she saw ‘Sam’s New York. Made in U.S.A. Patent Pending’.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was in one of the hidden rooms in the basement.”

“How many rooms have you found down there?”

“Six so far. There might be others further down the tunnel, but technically they won’t belong to me as they’re not part of The Old Haunt’s property deed.”

“You gonna tell me what you’ve found down there?”

“Depends. You going to report it to the mayor’s office? Because, you should know he and I have had a discussion about what happens to whatever else I find down there.”

“You and the mayor or your lawyers and the city’s lawyers?”

“Both.”

“And?”

“As long as whatever I find can't be absolutely verifiable as belonging to Jimmy Walker, then I can keep it.”

“How much of what you found has mysteriously lost all ownership indicators?” She tried to keep her voice stern, but Beckett couldn’t help the way her lips turned up in a bit hint of a smile. Picking up her glass, she tried to hide her reaction by sipping her wine. The grin breaking across Castle’s lips let her know she wasn’t fooling him at all.

“Why Detective Beckett, are you trying to entrap me?” The way he was leaning in, as if he could see right into the darkest corners of her mind right to her well-hidden secrets and private truths, made her stomach jitter in a not completely unpleasant way.

“Would you like to be entrapped?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them and while she’d like to blame the alcohol, two beers and a couple of sips of wine were hardly enough to lower her inhibitions to this level.

From the stunned look that Castle was giving her, Beckett surmised he couldn’t quite believe what she'd said either. 

“Yes,” he finally got out.

Wanting, needing, to break the tension that was steadily growing between them – a tension that had started to weave through just about every interaction in the last couple of months culminating with a kiss, several kisses, she was incredibly determined to stop thinking about – Beckett racked her brain for any topic that would lead her away from wanting to jump him.

Stealing a moment, she took a swallow of wine, trying not to gulp. Castle mimicked her and she found her eyes drawn to the way the strong muscles in his throat corded and relaxed as he swallowed. Wisps of a dream came to her of his head thrown back, those very same muscles clenched tightly as he—

No. She absolutely was not going to think about this, that, him.

Crap.

She took another swallow of wine; the liquid could be water for all the notice she took of its taste. There had to be a way to force herself not to pay heed to all the ways he caught her attention the way she'd been able to before they'd kissed. It was distracting; it left her out of sorts and aching in ways she most definitely shouldn’t be.

Not for her partner. 

Castle toyed with his own wine, steadily swirling the glass with his fingers spread wide cupping the bowl so that it was dwarfed by his hand. He had such big hands, such long fingers.

For fuck’s sake, Beckett mentally chided herself.

The way her brain had been going lately, watching him mutter in annoyance at Angry Birds made her want to jump him these days. She had no chance against him, them, this, here, alone, flirting, with nothing but her own sense of self-preservation to stop her from doing something stupid.

Her sense of self-preservation had never been very highly developed. 

Without conscious thought, she licked her lips, only realizing what she’d done by the way Castle’s pupils dilated and by the slight increase of his breathing. A puff of air fluttered the hair that was curling down her right shoulder and she wondered what it would be like to feel his breath wash over her bare skin. 

Unexpectedly, Castle jerked back from her, and Beckett realized that they’d been leaning in. Jesus, were they about to kiss before he pulled back? Did she want them to? Really want them to, more than the urgings from her hormones and a body that had gotten used to regular sex?

One kiss undercover – okay, several intense kisses with tongue that had her toes curling in her boots and some low moans coming from both of them – could be considered an aberration. Here, alone, in The Old Haunt, with no danger, with no excuse of fooling the guard to blame their kiss on, here it would be different. Here it would mean something that she feared Castle would make her discuss. She feared that there was a line he wouldn’t cross and if they crossed it together then their relationship would change.

Forever.

“There’s a hideout room off the office. Want to see it?” he asked, his little-boy grin in place. However, to Beckett it looked somewhat forced.

“Maybe I should get going,” Beckett told him. It was getting much too dangerous for them to be alone together without the excuse of work. And without co-workers as chaperones. 

“Yeah. Sure. It’s getting late,” Castle quickly conceded.

Still, her heart sank as she watched the happy good humor leach from his face.

Not saying another word, Castle slid out from the booth and grabbed her coat, holding it out to her. For once he didn’t try to help her into it and she wondered just how on edge he was.

That he wanted her was no secret, but since the kisses he’d been carefully keeping his distance while not actually leaving her sphere. It was almost as if he wasn’t sure what would happen if he touched her, how she would react.

Frankly, she wasn’t all that sure either.

“Whoa!” Castle exclaimed as Beckett jumped back when he opened the door for her. Over the course of the night while they’d been playing poker, it had obviously been snowing. And snowing fairly hard, judging by the nearly three feet of accumulation piled up in the base of the stairwell. 

“I guess it snowed a bit while you guys were losing your money to me,” Beckett said as she sank into through the knee-deep snow.

“Come back inside, Beckett.”

“It’s just a little snow,” she said, gripping the handrail to make sure she didn’t land on her ass in front of him while climbing the steps to street level.

“Three inches is a little snow. This,” he said, waving his hands about to encompass the drifts, the flakes still falling, the lack of visible steps, “this, is a blizzard that requires staying indoors and stocking up on essentials like marshmallows and Bunsen burners.”

“How do the Bun— No, wait, I don’t want to know.” Beckett stepped onto the sidewalk and looked up and down the eerily deserted street in dismay. 

“Now I understand why there was no one here tonight,” Castle said from next to her. 

From the looks of it, the plows hadn’t yet made a first pass at clearing the street. There weren’t even any of the telltale trenches left behind by passing cars and she wondered what the rest of the city was like.

It was a good twenty minute cab ride from here to her place on a good night; tonight it could take hours just to find a cab. She didn’t relish trudging through the snow to the nearest subway station.

Even as she had the thought, three blocks north the lights went out as far as she could see through the swirling white of rapidly falling snow.

“Crap,” she muttered. A gust of wind whipped her hair around and made the snow that was falling in fluffy flakes sting her eyes.

“I don’t think either of us are going to be getting home tonight. Let’s go back into The Old Haunt and gather supplies.”

Instantly, Beckett wondered where he kept the Bunsen burners, and slammed her mouth shut in case she forgot she didn't want to know and actually asked. Heaving a sigh, she turned to face him and wondered what their relationship would look like twelve hours from now.

The wind gusted again and Beckett forced herself to stand firm and not sway into Castle's solid warmth. How was it that standing in the middle of a blizzard on a deserted New York street, hair blowing crazily in the wind, he seemed even more attractive than before?

As cute as the younger Castle looked wearing a cocky smile in his picture behind the booth where he'd written 'In a Hail of Bullets', the older, more experienced man in front of her was exponentially more appealing. His eyes looked at her and saw far more than she wanted him to. Or maybe just as much. She wasn’t really sure any more.

A sudden shiver racked his body making up Beckett’s mind for her; the chances of getting a cab were slim to none and she didn't want to risk a potential broken limb trying to hike to the nearest subway stop in boots that while stylish and fine for work would mean certain injury if she hit a patch of ice.

That was if the subway was even still running.

Giving herself a mental shake to try and prepare for whatever was going to happen with the rest of the night, she turned back towards the steps. “I guess we’re both spending the night here.” She hoped that there was more food somewhere other than the fruit for cocktails and the mini pretzels served in small wooden bowls that were common fare at The Old Haunt. 

Snow muffling their steps, Castle led the way back down to the front door of The Old Haunt and held the door open for her.

“Looks like we’re snowed in,” he said as he locked the door behind them. While there might be a boyish excitement in Castle's voice, he either didn't bother or couldn't do anything to conceal the completely adult look in his eyes.


End file.
